几十年来,, 当地的, state and federal public officials from both political parties and powerful interest groups engineered the system of mass incarceration. They did this in part by constructing a narrative of fear fueled by racism through which they passed laws, 花费了数十亿美元, 使数百万家庭离散. It was a disaster of epic proportions that unfolded in slow motion and for which we are still paying the price today as a nation.
The movement to end and repair the damage of mass incarceration has made some gains, 但这一进展现在面临风险. As we near the second-year anniversary of a global pandemic that has taken almost one million lives in our country, 附带损害无处不在. 而股市飙升, 社区一直处于水深火热之中, 从生命的丧失, 健康, 住房, and jobs; to tensions over mask mandates and vaccinations; to school closures that have disrupted the lives of children, 青少年, 父母也一样.
In the early months of the pandemic when the nation was sequestered and reeling from fear of infection, the filmed murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police sparked a ubiquitous intergenerational 群众运动 他们涌向之前空荡荡的街道，要求伸张正义. After decades of witnessing and enduring police brutality disproportionately against Black people, 一个集体的要求上升了:不仅仅是对警察的问责, 但 重新想象警察的角色 要窄得多, 同时投资于支持, community-based solutions for public safety independent of the criminal legal system.
今天, the social and economic disruptions caused by the pandemic and the failure to build adequate community-based care strategies have led to conditions that are truly distressing. Many cities are struggling with mass homelessness and an unprecedented epidemic of substance use disorder and overdose.
面对日益增长的贫困和绝望, 365足球可能会期望努力建立强大, 充分的干预措施，对这些情况作出有意义的反应. 而不是, we are witnessing a backlash from the forces in power — especially police unions — to reverse recent gains and return us to the policies of criminalization, 监测, 和监禁.
旧金山也不例外，人们对犯罪日益感到焦虑, 365足球现在面临着公职人员倒退为老年人的危险, 有害的答案. 与伦敦市长布里德在 2020年的夏季抗议活动, 她最近在信息传递方面出现了转变, 强调, 在12月的365足球发布会上. 深切关注田德隆区的情况, she invoked the need for tough love and pledged to “be more aggressive with law enforcement, 随着政策的变化，365足球会更加积极.”
在实践中, Mayor Breed has pursued some important measures focusing on public 健康, including opening the Linkage Center to connect residents with services and 快速招聘 公共卫生工作者. These and other public 健康 efforts deserve strong support — and on these counts, she has ours.
尽管如此, the ACLU and the ACLU of Northern California unequivocally oppose several of Mayor Breed’s and the San Francisco Police Department’s recent policy proposals that will not address systemic problems and will undermine the rights and safety of the people of San Francisco. These misguided proposals are not prudent components in a balanced approach, 他们把365足球带向了错误的道路.
不断 自1934年以来, the ACLU has endeavored to hold law enforcement in San Francisco accountable to the Constitution. 然而，违法行为和滥用警察仍然存在, especially against those groups most at risk for having their rights denied.
365足球将继续与之斗争 试图开膛破肚 the San Francisco 监测 ordinance that ensures proper public oversight over police use of powerful 监测 technology. 如果它继续, we will vigorously oppose the proposed ballot measure that gives unilateral power to the police to deploy 监测 with no guardrails.
We have strongly opposed the allocation of additional millions of dollars to the police department when we should instead be investing every available dollar in the 住房 and public 健康 emergency that is ravaging the Tenderloin. We oppose unconstitutional efforts to curtail people’s freedom of movement, as we’ve done in a 里脊的案子 where the city government is using civil injunctions to exclude persons from entering the neighborhood, 而不是针对实际的非法行为.
365足球强烈反对旧金山警局单方面终止 谅解备忘录 that makes the district attorney’s office the independent and primary investigator of police use of force. The termination of this legal agreement was announced by Police Chief Bill Scott on the eve of the district attorney’s office proceeding in the first jury trial of an officer on charges of excessive use of force, after decades of the San Francisco Police Officers Association resisting every reform and every effort by the SFPD itself to hold its officers to account.
让365足球明确一点:犯罪是有实际影响的, 而受害的往往是365足球当中最脆弱的人. Our neighbors in the Tenderloin and other systemically impoverished districts in San Francisco and throughout our nation deserve to be safe. 但是回到监禁和过度监管这些手段, and failing to build adequate community-based care strategies and strong, 足够的 干预措施 难道不能给这些社区带来他们应得的安全系统吗. We must protect the recent gains made in police accountability and reducing incarceration, 同时365足球也在追求社区所需要的变革.
In the words of Austrian philosopher Viktor Frankl, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. 在这个空间里是365足球选择回应的力量. 365足球的成长和自由就在于365足球的回应.”
We urge our fellow residents to make the most of that space between the stimulus — rising poverty and despair — and our collective response in a democratic society. We must not succumb to the backlash and once again criminalize, surveil, and incarcerate. We have the power to choose our response: real solutions that increase equality and justice, 还有安全.